Linguistic Elegance And The Bible

[Llwellyn]

One of the things that I like least about the Bible is that the use of language in the Bible is often very clumsy, ugly and ambiguous.  I would say that the Biblical epistles of Paul, in particular, are ponderous and unclear.  Paul often seems to be trying to make an argument, but his logic does not follow;  his writing is murky.  Also, at key points he uses rhetorical questions instead of demonstrative points.  Precisely when the reader is looking for an answer, Paul simply throws back a question:   ("What shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us?  Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world?")  It is quite horrible to read as the reader finds himself lost in Paul's words.  If Pastors complain that most Christians don't take their Bible off the shelf, it is likely explained by the fact that the language the reader finds there is written by someone who does not know how to communicate well.  It is frustrating to read.

 

Here is an example from Romans 1.  In that Chapter, Paul is explaining that humans have a "sensus divinitatis" -- a prior awareness of Yahweh's reality and Yahweh's character.  Among other things, Paul claims that people find themselves knowing of Yahweh's curse for certain human behaviors:  "They know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death."  Verse 32.  What exactly are those behaviors that Yahweh requites with a curse?  It seems like Paul would want to be clear on this point, because it would matter very much if it were true.  Instead, Paul seems to be unable to distinguish between nouns, adjectives and verbs.  Rather than creating an elegant list of behaviors in parallel construction, he jumbles up a bunch of parts of speech that leaves the reader wondering what effort at all Paul is making to communicate, and wondering if Paul's thoughts are equally as murky as his writing:

 

"They do what ought not to be done.  They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents;  they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  They know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death." . . . .  .  I grant that this is an English translation of koine Greek, but no doubt the english tracks the Greek quite closely.  Koine Greek had the same parts of speech as English.  I also grant that there are Biblical writings which do have aesthetic clarity.  But when we turn to the most important Christian theological writings by Paul, the reader wades into a rhetorical morass.  Thoughts?

 

[mymistake]

Numbers makes Paul sound beautiful and Isaiah makes Paul sound like a genius.  Recently I tried reading one of the minor prophets. (It was one of the books I never got around to during my 30+ years as a Christian.)  It was full of hatred for women and racism.  

 

It would probably be easier to mention the parts of the Bible that have the best writing.  I think the Gospels (except for the genealogies), Acts, Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastics are the best of Bible writing.  And even those sections have plenty of problems.

[RipVanWinkle]

Well, Ecclesiastes makes up for Paul's Epistles, don't you think? Proverbs isn't bad either.  bill

[amateur]

I don't like how the stories are written either.  They are too short and choppy.

 

The Tower of Babel story, for instance, is six verses long - six sentences!  That's not a story!  And it gives no definitive "why"'s and "how"'s of what happened, so everybody gets to draw their own conclusions.  Which kind of sums up the bible and xianity, to me.

[VacuumFlux]

One interesting explaination I've heard for the weirdness in Paul's letters was that the original language doesn't show quotations marks. So a lot of what's going on is that he's quoting some other letting going around that got things wrong, and following that up with a refutation. Except now, without the quotes, people take the entire thing as The Word of God and therefore get some really weird ideas.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot find where I first read that. It was from a more liberal christian, who claimed that some of the worst stuff (particularly about the role of women) wasn't Paul's words, but something else that Paul was quoting in order to make fun of it. Which seems... awfully convenient, if you want to pretend like the bible is nicer than it really is. So I would like to know how many real scholars think that that is a possibility.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Paul is also famous for run-on sentences, sometimes ending up with "in Christ". It's like he has a complex thought, and the only way he can express it is by going on and on. Kind of like some believers when they post on forums. I know one believer that will type page after page of what seems like pure logic to him, which to others is raving gibberish of disconnected thoughts he's piled up over the years.

[Fernweh]

Paul's writings are obviously full of rhetoric and refutations of controversial beliefs of the day. That in and of itself isn't much of a problem except for a couple of things. Since everything is split up into numbered verses it's easy to take a rhetorical statement out of context and present the counter argument as the Word of God. More importantly, why would an all powerful god need to use polemic writing to convey his message. One might think the all powerful creator of everything should use an authoritative tone without resorting to rhetoric and leave his message open to confusion.